


hey stranger (don't i look familiar to you)

by slightlied



Series: check for yes [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Professors, Fluff, Idk what else im kinda delirious rn, Lots of Post-Its, M/M, Mini Coopers, Not sponsored by Post-Its though, Pero like if Post-Its wants to endorse me... [eyes], Ramen that doesn't rlly get eaten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-08 03:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12246078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlied/pseuds/slightlied
Summary: It’s not that Yuuri is a nosy person. To be fair, he thinks anyone would wonder about the person they’ve been sharing a space with for the better part of a year.Or, Yuuri is a part-time professor who shares an office with someone who writes themselves too many post-it notes. There are a lot of facts to process, and Yuuri's got a lot of assumptions.





	hey stranger (don't i look familiar to you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [regardinglove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/regardinglove/gifts).



> title is from 'awkward pt 2' by social club misfits 
> 
> i feel like this is less "university professors" and more "Actual High Schoolers Yuuri Katsuki and Victor Nikiforov" but i hope you enjoy this nonetheless, rae! ♥
> 
> side note they've both been been aged up by 2 years because while they're both technically geniuses for having PhDs already, i couldn't quite have them be _too much_ of a genius, u know?? and so.
> 
> *this fic was written for the [shifty skater fic exchange](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/shiftyskater) and was originally posted on anon, and revealed on 6 oct 2017

Although there are few facts Yuuri knows about the professor he shares his office with, he has plenty of assumptions.

Assumption number one: He is old. Yuuri assumes this because everyone in the English department is old. Yuuri also assumes this because fact number one, Professor Nikiforov has grey hair. They cling to the back of his office chair and stand out against the black microfiber.

Assumption number two: He is forgetful. This is backed up by fact number two, which is that Professor Nikiforov leaves himself entirely too many memos. There is always a collection of post-it notes decorating the surface of his desk and computer monitor, and they range from reminders like

 **_Pick up dry cleaning Fri 2pm  
_** **_Translated texts deadline Tues  
_ ** ******_Only the Thursday barista makes it right_**

to nonsensical ramblings like

 **_But you don’t nEED it!  
_** **_Makkachin deserves better  
_ ** ******_Ask someone if new glasses make me look old_**

Which. That’s all Yuuri needs to back up Assumption Number One.

The post-its are always the same color, and Yuuri doesn’t figure out until eight months of sharing an office with him that the colors change with the leaves every season.

When Yuuri lets himself into their shared office one Monday in April, the post-its that paper every surface of the left side of the room are light green, and a faint and familiar spicy-sweet scent fills his nostrils to let him know that his colleague stopped by over the weekend. Sometimes when Yuuri gets into the office extra early and it seems like Professor Nikiforov stayed in late the night before, traces of his cologne gets left behind. He smells _good_ , for an old guy. And expensive.

(So, assumption number three: He is rich. He’s gotta have a really kicking side hustle, or something, because no part-time English professor has any right to be smelling that expensive. Yuuri can barely afford scented aftershave.)

Yuuri sits at his desk and grades papers all morning, until the fluorescent lighting makes black spots appear beneath his eyelids and he realizes he hasn’t really blinked for the last three hours. He takes off his glasses to rub at his eyes for a few moments, and when he puts them back on his sight clears and rests, as they always do, on the desk at the other side of the room.

It’s not that Yuuri is a nosy person. To be fair, he thinks anyone would wonder about the person they’ve been sharing a space with for the better part of a year.

It’s actually strange that they haven’t met yet, but Yuuri only gets in on Mondays and Wednesdays and the occasional Friday, and Professor Nikiforov seems to have a Tuesday-Thursday schedule. They both have part-time schedules, because they’re both part-time professors, and they wouldn’t really be sharing an office, otherwise.

Still, they’ve never even met at staff meetings. (Although it isn’t like the English department has regular staff meetings, anyway. Dean Feltsman seems to prefer e-mail correspondence and one-on-one meetings, which suits Yuuri just fine.)

Professor Nikiforov also just makes it really easy to be curious about him. Right now the most prized fact that Yuuri knows about him is that fact number three—he owns a poodle.

At first, Yuuri had thought that he owned several poodles, until he realized that Professor Victor Nikiforov just has very (very) many photos of the same dog. There are four photo frames on his desk, a photo calendar hanging on the wall by his desktop computer, a photo saved as the _wallpaper_ for his desktop computer, and even his mouse pad has been customized to show off a very gorgeous Makkachin frolicking in the park. (They all come from different photoshoots; there is no way they have not been professionally-taken. There is a fancy thing called _depth of field_ that Phichit once taught Yuuri, and there is decidedly a lot of that happening in these doggy portraits; blurry backgrounds giving away to a clear furry visage.)

Yuuri only knows her name because professionally-taken photos are not the limit to which Professor Victor Nikiforov likes to display his dog; he also seems to enjoy doodling poodles in her likeness and decorating them with hearts and poorly-drawn dog bones that look like impressive penises, and labelling them with **_MAKKACHIN! ♥_ ** in loopy script.

Today, there is actually a new addition to the photo frames on Victor’s desk, and it features Makkachin wearing a headband with little hearts bouncing in coils. Her mouth is open and a pink tongue lolls out, and not for the first time Yuuri’s heart pangs for his childhood dog back home in Hasetsu. The urge to buy his own dog here flares up again, but Yuuri’s apartment building has a strict no pets policy and there’s nowhere else within the vicinity of the university that provides so much space at an affordable price.

(Professor Nikiforov may be rich, but _Professor Katsuki_ takes his meager part-time professorship earnings and lives off of them so that he can continue to give dance lessons at the community center.)

Before he can think better of it, Yuuri lifts a post-it from the stacks that line the edge of Professor Nikiforov’s desk and leaves a note, sticking it in the corner of the new photo.

**_Very cute! ♥_ **

 

*

 

Yuuri doesn’t really think about it again until two days later. He doesn’t get into the office until noon because roadwork had forced him to detour from his usual route, which meant not getting to stop by his neighborhood coffee shop and instead having to get coffee from the university café. Not only is the uni café expensive, even with his staff discount (why is a _banana_ three dollars?) it is also loud and _busy_ , and Yuuri had had to wait thirty-six minutes for his caramel latte. He counted the minutes. Oh, he counted the minutes.

 _I should get into tea_ , Yuuri thinks. He also vaguely recognizes that he should probably just sleep more so that he doesn’t need to rely on caffeine so much, but he’d like to be selective about the facts today.

Because there is a more pressing fact at hand, and it comes in one bright green post-it note. It looks out-of-place in the middle of Yuuri’s desk, which is kept minimalistic and decorated in dark, neutral tones, unlike his colleague’s space.

**_Thank you so much!_ **

is written inside a speech bubble, with the tail pointing at a doodled head of a poodle that Yuuri assumes is supposed to be Makkachin. One of its ears is floppy and a bit bigger than the other—Professor Nikiforov has a terrible sense of symmetry when it comes to these drawings, Yuuri has noticed—and the note confuses him for a few seconds until he remembers the note he had left on Monday. He smiles and tucks it inside one of his drawers.

 

*

 

It should have been left at that, really. Except in between classes while he’s enjoying a break, Yuuri finds himself doodling his own poodle, this time with equally-sized floppy ears. He nods to himself, satisfied, and sets it aside.

Come Monday morning, a new note sits next to his drawing.

**_Nice!!!_ **

There is a face drawn below it, big and sloppy with hearts in its eyes. One of the heart is, as expected, larger than the other. Yuuri almost misses the second note beneath it.

**_Do you have a dog?_ **

And suddenly they’re having a _conversation_.

Yuuri’s **_No, but I used to_ ** is met with a dismayed face doodle—Professor Nikiforov is _drawing emojis,_ and for the first time, Yuuri questions the validity of Assumption Number One—and a wallet-sized photo of Makkachin that Yuuri is free to keep. It’s from the same photoshoot of Makkachin wearing the hearts headband, and in this particular shot she also holds a little plastic bow and arrow in her mouth.

Yuuri writes, **_She’s adorable. Thank you._ **

Professor Nikiforov writes him more hearts and thank you’s and asks him his opinion on the Avengers.

**_I like Captain America. Why?_ **

This time, the photo he gets is of Makkachin wearing a Captain America shield on her back. A blue eye mask is tied loosely around her face, like it couldn’t quite stay on.

Soon, the conversation falls away to different things; where they like to get their coffee (Professor Nikiforov draws a sobbing emoji while lamenting over the university café prices), what they think about Dean Feltsman’s new beret ( ** _I gifted him the previous one!_ ** Professor Nikiforov had written with a sunglasses emoji), and how the air conditioning in the office definitely needs to get fixed, with summer coming up soon.

**_Last year I shared an office with Professor Karpisek and—the sweat stains!!!_ **

The note is decorated with skull emojis. Yuuri snorts while reading it, before shifting in his seat and suddenly becoming self-conscious of himself. After all, Yuuri has been assuming all kinds of things from Professor Nikiforov’s side of the room. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the other professor does the same thing on their end, too.

Not that Yuuri really has any personal belongings that he keeps in the office, except for his degrees in Dramatic Literature that he keeps framed on the wall. Still, he cleans up that day, more careful than he usually is not to leave a mess. He supposes he’s always been subconsciously aware of the assumptions he’s been making about Professor Nikiforov, and wanted to leave a respectable impression, too.

And speaking of assumptions, Professor Nikiforov has completely obliterated Assumption Number One. He has an entirely too liberal use of emojis, and the language in his notes are so youthful that Yuuri thinks he may actually be even younger than him. Except that would make Professor Nikiforov some sort of genius, because his own wall boasts two masters and a PhD.

Yuuri knows that he could potentially just Google the guy, find out how old he is and what he actually looks like, but when he’s finished typing in the name on the search engine, he can’t quite find it in himself to hit enter.

It feels wrong, somehow, like it’s cheating. Like it’s going behind Professor Nikiforov’s back when he could just ask him himself. Or better yet, meet with him in person and asks him any questions he wants to then.

But Yuuri squashes that thought away and, with a shaky hand, settles with,

**_How old are you?_ **

It feels like he’s holding his breath for the entire day and a half he has to wait before going into campus again.

**_Turning 30!_ **

He’s attached an old man emoji and a muscle emoji, and Yuuri exhales. It’s less that Yuuri really cared about his age, and more about the fact that Professor Nikiforov is a real, actual human being that makes Yuuri feel a bit strange. Like there’s a person coming to life beneath the black ink and green sticky paper, like they’re growing from the collection of assumptions and facts that Yuuri has about him; one whole entire human being underneath the expensive cologne and the bursting-over-capacity love for his dog.

The strange feeling isn’t necessarily bad or unwelcome, but it’s a gentle reminder that _yes_ , Yuuri has essentially been cohabiting in this space with someone, an actual someone, and it makes him more mindful in their future correspondences.

 

*

 

Yuuri doesn’t think it’s a thing. Definitely not a huge, capital-T _t_ _hing_. He’s been exchanging notes with someone (someone he _still has not met_ ) for the better part of two months, is all. They chat about lots of things, but are limited to the space of a three-by-three piece of paper. It’s not an _ordeal,_ except that Victor—he’s _Victor_ now, after Yuuri admitted he’d been calling him ‘Professor Nikiforov’ in his head and he’d received several dismayed faces and a, **_I don’t even make my students call me that! Not even Dr.!!!_ ** —finally revealed to him today that his cologne is Tom Ford’s Noir de Noir. It’s a breakthrough. Yuuri looked it up online and confirmed, yep, it’s expensive.

But it’s not A Thing. At least he doesn’t think it is, until he casually brings it up over ramen with his friends that Wednesday night.

“It’s not a thing,” Phichit repeats, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Except that you’ve been writing and passing each other notes back and forth like you’re in high school?”

Yuuri shifts and bites down on the soup spoon his mouth. His teeth clack against the plastic. “Well. Yeah.”

Sara squeals and sets down her chopsticks, sunflower scarf falling loosely against her shoulders and making her look every bit the kindergarten teacher that she is. “That is so cute, Yuuri.”

“Oh my God,” Phichit says. He’s suddenly abuzz with energy, and he releases it with a sharp slap on the person who’s sitting closest to him, which happens to be Seunggil. The man huffs and shoots Yuuri a look like he’d been the one to hit him himself. “Oh my _God_ , Yuuri.”

“What?” Yuuri asks, defensive.

“Unbelievable. _Unbelievable_. Can you _believe_ this guy?” Phichit turns to Seunggil and waves a hand in Yuuri’s direction, as if he’s not speaking at a normal volume and Yuuri can’t hear every word he’s saying.

Seunggil continues to chew his ramen and shrugs with one shoulder.

“Exactly,” Phichit says, nodding solemnly.

“What?” Yuuri asks again.

“You’re crushing on him!” Phichit crows. His exclamation garners the attention of nearby patrons, and Seunggil nudges him with an elbow to keep his voice down. “You’re crushing on him,” Phichit repeats, stage-whispering.

Yuuri stuffs his mouth with egg and noodle, partly to avoid answering and partly because he doesn’t even really know what to say to this.

Sara comes to his rescue. “Yuuri’s not _crushing_ on him.”

Yuuri slowly nods his head in agreement. He couldn’t possibly be crushing on Professor Nikiforov. Victor.

So, they pass each other notes like they’re in high school.

“Victor still has to check ‘yes’ or ‘no’ if he accepts his feelings,” she says with a toothy grin, and Phichit bursts into laughter. Even the corners of Seunggil’s mouth are turned up, like he’s smiling.

So, Yuuri’s beginning to suspect that Victor spritzes a bit of his cologne on the notes he leaves behind.

Yuuri swallows miserably. “I have a PhD.”

Phichit snickers. “A pretty huge—“ Seunggil elbows him again. “—case of Denial,” Phichit finishes. “I was going to say _case of denial_.”

Seunggil snorts. “You’re a _case of denial._ ”

So, Yuuri’s given his own opinions for Makkachin’s past three photoshoots, and Victor had incorporated all of them and gifted him more wallet-sized pictures from each.

So, Yuuri _does_ keep them in his wallet, and admittedly his favorite is the very first one, the one of Makkachin dressed up like Captain America, and so what if that picture greets him whenever he opens his wallet and makes him smile a bit.

“What’s that?” Phichit asks, sounding scandalized when they break up the check after their meal. He plucks Yuuri’s wallet out of his hands. “Is this— _no_. Is this his dog?”

“Gimme.” Seunggil’s ears perk up at _‘dog'_ and he makes grabby hands. He scrutinizes the photo as if it’s one of the lines of code that he faces all day and he murmurs a soft, “S’cute.”

“Her name is Makkachin.” Yuuri smiles, and then frowns, because there’s no reason why he should be sounding so proud. Makkachin’s not his dog.

“Oh my God,” Phichit moans again, head falling into his hands. “I can’t handle this.”

Sara’s arm slips into Yuuri’s elbow as they exit the ramen shop. “So when are you guys meeting for real?”

“I dunno,” Yuuri says, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Do you _want_ to meet him?” Sara questions. Her finger pads dig into the sleeve of his shirt, and her eyes search Yuuri’s with excitement. Yuuri remembers that Sara went on another blind date behind Michele’s back the other weekend and wonders how it went. Probably not well, with the way she’s looking so hopefully at Yuuri. “For real?”

They pile into her Mini Cooper and Yuuri settles in the backseat with Phichit before answering. “Yeah...I think so.”

“You should stop by the office tomorrow,” Phichit says. He’s got his nose buried in his phone, and he swipes at his screen aggressively. “You should meet him immediately.”

“What are you—did you Google him?” Yuuri asks in disbelief.

Phichit’s eyebrows jump up, thick and expressive. “You telling me you haven’t?” He moans again at whatever expression Yuuri’s wearing on his face. “Oh my God.”

Sara tuts from the driver’s seat.

“I don’t know what the big deal is,” Yuuri says. He pokes Seunggil, who’s seated in the passenger seat and grunts in response. “What’s the big deal?”

Seunggil just grunts again.

“No, no,” Phichit says with a dramatic sigh. “You know what, just keep doing what you’re doing. Write each other your lines of classical poetry—“

“He teaches Russian Lit.”

“And doodle your little Renaissance pieces—“

“He draws emojis.”

“Why don’t you just leave him your phone number,” Sara suggests. She pulls up in front of Seunggil’s apartment building and parks, hand brake emitting a loud _CRICK!_

“Perfect!” Phichit says loudly. “Then they can keep texting each other through the night. Like teenagers.”

“Then he can use actual emojis,” Seunggil counters. He hops out of his seat and nods at them. “Good night. Drive safe.” Sara gives a little wave and waits until he’s made it safely inside his building.

“Then he can just send you more photos of Makkachin,” she muses aloud when they’re on the road again.

“Then I won’t see his handwriting anymore,” Yuuri murmurs. He rests his head against the window and closes his eyes. The streetlights zip by and flash brightly against his eyelids as they pass overhead. “Or get to keep his notes.”

“Jesus Christ,” Phichit says.

 

*

 

Yuuri contemplates leaving his phone number, because even though he thinks he may be ready to meet Victor face-to-face, he couldn’t possibly assume that the other wants to meet _him,_ too. Victor’s never hinted at wanting to meet either, anyway, so exchanging numbers and upgrading to virtual communication is the most reasonable step up from their current relationship.

He makes up his mind while waiting for his coffee at the university café, because the roadwork in his neighborhood is still a nightmare, but when he arrives at the office with nerves of steel and a clenched fist around the strap of his messenger bag, he finds that he doesn’t need to act on his decision. He finds that Victor’s made the decision for both of them.

“Hi!”

Yuuri thinks it’s kind of funny that he actually registered Victor’s cologne first. It did seem more fresh and potent then it’s ever been after stepping over the threshold, and he only realized afterwards that the always-empty left side of the room was occupied today.

“Can I help you?” The man behind the left desk asks. He’s dressed simply, in a black turtleneck and charcoal grey slacks. The cuffs of his pants stick out from the side of his desk where his long legs are stretched out, and the leather of his shoes are almost as shiny as the name plaque in front of him that reads **_Victor Nikiforov, PhD._ ** When Yuuri doesn’t answer, he tilts his head to the side and lets silver hair fall into his eyes. It’s thick and shiny and healthy and he’s decidedly not the image of a balding man averaging fifty-or-so years old, like the rest of their department is comprised of.

Assumption number one: Professor Nikiforov is old. _Invalid_.

“They don’t make you look old,” Yuuri blurts out. Victor’s eyebrows jump behind thin, black frames. “Your glasses.”

Victor’s lips part in surprise, recognition dawning on his face. “Yuuri?”

“Victor?” Like his name isn’t right there embossed in gold. Like it isn’t plastered all over the certificates on the walls.

Victor, fortunately, laughs good-naturedly. It sounds nice, his voice sounds nice, and Yuuri wonders why they’ve been communicating through writing when Victor sounds like _that_ , all warm and deep and melodiously sounding out every word like he’s tasting them.

“You’re so young! And cute,” Victor says.

Yuuri frowns. “I told you I turn twenty-six—“

“In November!” Victor nods eagerly. “I remember!” He taps at an open folder in front of him, and it looks like it’s filled with post-its. Yuuri faintly recognizes the handwriting as his own, and that Victor’s pointing to one of the notes he had left last week.

Assumption number two. _Valid_ , Yuuri supposes.

“Won’t you sit?” Victor gestures at him.

Yuuri realizes he hasn’t moved at all since arriving at the door, and he flushes and forces his feet to move. Victor watches him silently as he hangs up his windbreaker on the little hook he has on his wall, sets his bag down neatly on his desk, and seats himself in his chair with a tiny squeak.

“So cute,” Victor says again when Yuuri swivels around to face him. “And clean. But not boring,” he adds with an easy smile.

“Clean is supposed to be boring?”

Victor shrugs. “I wondered about you. But you’re so clean. I thought you were a robot. Actually, I didn’t think you were even real for a few months,” he admits. “The only thing that ever gave you away was your trash.”

“You went through my _trash_?” Yuuri asks, horrified.

“I didn’t—god, that sounds. Wait.” Victor puts both palms up and lets out a sheepish laugh. “I just. Looked into it. Sometimes. I didn’t _go through_ it,” he amends.

“…I read some of your post-its.”

“You love Kit-Kats.”

“…Okay, so I’ve read all of your post-its.”

“And you really, really love Kit-Kats.” Victor’s smile widens before they’re both bursting into laughter.

“Is this weird?” Yuuri asks. “I feel like I should be writing something down and then passing it over for you to read. Like…”

“...we’re in high school,” Victor finishes, eyes crinkling.

“ _High school_ ,” Yuuri snorts. “My friends said that, too. They said you’d have to check ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on whether or not you accept my feelings.” He giggles, before his brain catches up with his mouth and his eyes snap up to meet Victor’s wide ones. “I mean—not that—I don’t _have_ —”

“My friend Christophe jokes a lot too,” Victor interrupts. He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms in front of him. “He’s the one who shoots all of Makkachin’s photos, and he was processing some of them to sell to a stock photo company—Makkachin’s modelling rakes in a lot of money,” he says as an aside, “And he turned to me and said, ‘So when are you going to ask your penpal to the Spring Fling?’

“You know, all joke-y and playful except. Except, it’s just that…” Victor reaches into his folder and grabs a post-it, holds it up between two fingers. “I realized I already was kinda planning for it.”

The note reads, **_Are you signed up to supervise Spring Fling?_ **

“You were going to ask me to  _chaperone_ with you?” Yuuri asks after a few moments.

“Well. Yes,” Victor says. “We just have to stay until halfway through, technically. And these students are over eighteen and don’t even _need_ supervision, technically. Also, this is a date, technically,” he adds.

Yuuri stares back at him.

Victor snaps his fingers. “Wait. This is all wrong.”

He rips a fresh post-it note from his stash and begins scribbling on the paper with his fountain pen. When he’s finished, he shoves it in Yuuri’s hands.

 **_Yuuri, will you go to Spring Fling with me?_ ** **_  
_****_[ ] check for yes_ ** **_  
_ ** ****_**[ ] check for no**_

Yuuri scans the note in his hands for all of two seconds before he’s crumbling it up and throwing it in the wastebasket underneath his desk. “That was so cheesy. This is so dumb.”

Victor pouts. “Hey, now—”

“Do you wanna grade papers with me for a few hours and then grab some lunch together?”

 

*

 

_Three semesters later_

When Yuuri gets into the office, the post-its are a burnt orange and cover every surface of both of their desks.

The desk on the left hosts notes that range from reminders like

 **_Yuuri’s comm dance studio Tuesdays 7pm_ ** **_  
_****_Wednesday barista makes it right, too_ ** **_  
_ ** ******_Farmers market moved to First & Amsterdam_**

To nonsensical ramblings like

 **_SRSLY you don’t even need it_ ** **_  
_****_Evil TA is evil. And has no manners. And looks like what an electric guitar sounds like_  ** **_  
_ ** ******_But THE HULK???_**

The desk on the right holds notes featuring two sets of handwriting, and they’re mostly nonsensical too, like

 **_Chicken 2nite? X_ ** **_  
_****We had chicken last nite!!!** **  
****_OK how about ramen_ ** **_  
_****Why are we always eating out** **  
** ******_$$$it’s on makka$$$_**

It’s always on Makkachin, Yuuri has realized. Her newest photo frame in the office is huge, and hangs on the wall between their two desks. It features her on her back, tummy out for two sets of hands to rub, pink tongue lolling out and tail wagging in a blur of motion. It sold for two thousand dollars in a bidding war between two pet care agencies.

Assumption number three: Professor Nikiforov is rich.

_Invalid._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! ♥ i realized at the end that i love this verse a lot even though it had to end there (like it had to... it had to...), so i've decided to turn it into a series and will be adding another part where we can explore their professor relationship a bit more
> 
> shoutout to isabella for helping me through the shitstorm that blew through My Writingville near the end ily xxx


End file.
